It was last summer when Paul Krugman first suggested the idea of mobilizing America for a space alien attack in order to create economic stimulus. Unbelievably, nobody in Washington has taken his advice yet (frankly I’m a little surprised). As you’ll see below in a video from Friday, that lack of interest hasn’t stopped Krugman from continuing to push the idea.

The Krugman plan doesn’t even rely on an actual alien invasion, but rather the threat of a fake attack so we can get all the stimulus a war provides without the actual war. It’s a Keynesian economics version of Capricorn One.

PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: This is hard to get people to do, much better, obviously, to build bridges and roads and healthcare clinics and schools. But my proposed, I actually have a serious proposal which is that we have to get a bunch of scientists to tell us that we’re facing a threatened alien invasion, and in order to be prepared for that alien invasion we have to do things like build high-speed rail. And the, once we’ve recovered, we can say, “Look, there were no aliens.”

But look, I mean, whatever it takes because right now we need somebody to spend, and that somebody has to be the U.S. government.

“There were no aliens”? The Obama administration would be at home with that because they’ve had a lot of practice saying “there was no market for these solar panels.” I’m a little perplexed though. If we were under imminent attack from an alien civilization, why would we want to build a bunch of brand new stuff for them to blow up? Krugman’s logic only makes sense provided we can convince everybody that, after traveling a hundred million light years, the first thing ET’s will be eager to do is ride on a train-to-nowhere with Ray LaHood.

Here’s the video of Krugman working his out of this world Keynesian magic:

Later in the evening, Krugman and a couple of Obama administration economic advisors gathered around the fire to continue the discussion. It was there that Krugman planted the space alien seed. Recovery Summer II here we come: